Cronobacter sakazakii (Enterobacter sakazakii): An Emerging Foodborne Pathogen

Abstract

<p><em>Cronobacter sakazakii</em> (<em>Enterobacter sakazakii</em>) is an emerging pathogen that causes necrotizing enterocolitis, sepsis, and meningitis. This bacterium is opportunistic pathogen and is linked with life-threatening infections in neonates and elderly persons. It is considered as ubiquitous organism and can be found in a broad range of foods &amp; food ingredients and in water, in a variety of areas, including hospitals and houses though outbreaks most commonly associated with the ingestion of contaminated powdered infant formula (PIF). International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods has ranked <em>C. sakazakii</em> a “severe hazard for restricted populations.” It poses high tolerance to environmental stresses such as osmotic stress, elevated temperature etc. and decontamination processes and has broad antibiotic resistance and resistance to bile salts and disinfectants. <em>Cronobacter sakazakii</em> may survive in macrophage cells and efficiently attach to and invade epithelial cell lines, produce exopolysaccharide, form biofilm and has active efflux pumps. Controlling the organism in the production environment, thereby reducing dissemination, necessitates the provision of suitable diagnostic tools. Appropriate measures by parents, food and infant formula manufacturers, and health care providers, as well as understanding of the pathogenesis, are important in the prevention of <em>C. sakazakii</em>-related infections.</p

Cronobacter sakazakii: stress survival and virulence potential in an opportunistic foodborne pathogen

“…Three of which; Cronobacter sakazakii, Cronobacter malonaticus and Cronobacter turicensis, have been linked to neonatal infections. 6,7 However, recent studies proposed that Cronobacter species C. helveticus, C. pulveris and C zurichensis form their own sub-clades, genetically distinct from Cronobacter. 8 The prototypical member of the Cronobacter family, C. sakazakii, is an opportunistic foodborne pathogen that has been linked with life-threatening conditions in neonates, immunocompromised infants, children (from 3 months to 4 y old) and elderly adults.…”

“…41 The wide variety of environments in which C. sakazakii is present, indicates that it has developed various traits that increase survival in difficult conditions, e.g., resistance to UV irradiation, 42 the ability to adhere to various surfaces due to fimbriae formation, 42 biofilm formation 43 and the ability to survive desiccation. 7,9,44 The ability of C. sakazakii to survive in low water environments is a unique stress survival strategy which is linked with survival and persistence of the pathogen in powdered infant formula (PIF), subject to an a w of »0.2 (inhospitable to most micro-organisms). A 2004 study found that 8 out of 9 PIF factories investigated were contaminated with C. sakazakii.…”

A highly selective and sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of selenium using 2-hydroxy-1-napthaldehyde-orthoaminophenol

“…Many sophisticated techniques, such as neutron activation analysis (NAA), 7 X-ray uorescence, 8 pulse polarography, 9 inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrophotometry (ICP-OES), 10 catalytic kinetic spectrophotometric methods, 11 automated hydride generation atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AHG-AAS), 12 high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), 13 graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry (GF-AAS) 14 and spectrouorimetry 15 have been widely applied to the determination of selenium. For this reason, a wide variety of spectrophotometric methods [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] for the determination of selenium has been developed. GF-AAS 14 is oen lacking in sensitivity due to sublimation at high temperature.…”

“…The rst four methods 7-10 are disadvantageous in terms of cost and the instruments used in routine analysis. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Most of these methods [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] involve solvent extraction, and are expensive, toxic and the product is non-recoverable. Automated hydride generation-AAS 12 is sensitive but oen lacks in sensitivity and is affected by matrix conditions of samples such as salinity.…”

“…GF-AAS 14 is oen lacking in sensitivity due to sublimation at high temperature. A composition of a few selected methods, [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] their spectral characteristics and drawbacks are summarized for comparison. Catalytic spectrophotometric 11 and spectrouorimetric 15 methods are sensitive but are generally lacking simplicity.…”